Evelyn's old friends all looked horrified at how unstable Evelyn was. Her eyes were wild, the beat up and bloody girl singing a little toon while she swung an axe back and forth. She did register their faces, their eyes wide, fear flashed in their eyes. She giggled.

"And you want to take us away...scaredy cats."

On some level she wanted them to argue. Fight her, fight them. Give her an excuse. But they only looked back with stunned and horrified expressions.

Newt lowered his voice, Evelyn could hear all the venom he could into his next words.

"And you , Tommy. You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here and asking me to leave with you. A lot of bloody nerve. The sight of you makes me sick."

Thomas’s face melted in sorrow. "What are you talking about?"

"He doesn't know." Evelyn whispered.

Sudden realization hit Evelyn. And it made her even angrier. He didn't even bother to read the note Newt wrote. The note that took everything inside him, all the strength and courage and Newt's best friend couldn't even bother to read it! She snarled, taking a step forward, protectiveness exploded from her chest, how could these...people standing in front of her claim they care when two broke their promises and the other can't even be bothered.

Evelyn suddenly saw herself from above, almost magically. Her craziness. She lowered her hatchet and looked at the floor. The rage had reached something like an even boil within her.

"Newt, I don’t get it," Thomas continued. "Why are you saying all this? Evelyn...what..? Why..?"

"I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry. We're sorry." The apology barely escaped Newt lips. This was unbearable. All of it. "But we need you to listen. I’m getting worse by the hour and I don’t have many sane ones left. Please leave. Evelyn...Evey..she's got maybe hours."

To add to it, almost like she was trying to prove a point, she started to cough. But she couldn't stop this time. The wild strength drained from her, she crumpled. Before Evelyn hit the ground, Ruffio shoved threw and grabbed her. Newt was trying as hard as he could to keep sane, to keep from cranking. Ruffio help Evelyn down, she was struggling to breath again. Black goo kept coming up.

Thomas started to speak again but Newt didn’t let him, held up a hand of warning and shouted, "No!"

Then he tried again to let the words pour out of him, say anything to appeal to their senses. They were stubborn, always were, but this was the worst possible time to be stubborn.

"No more talking from you. Just… please. Please leave. I’m begging you. I’m begging you to do this one thing for us. As sincerely as I’ve ever asked for anything in my life, I want you to do this for me. For Every. There’s a group we've met-"

"Yeah, clearly...this Mafia boss." Minho spat, eyeing up Goose and then turned his anger and mistrust onto Ruffio who was propping Evelyn up, trying to wipe the black from her chin.

"Yes, Minho. They are part of our gange now." Goose said quite calmly.

"I wasn't talking to you, crank."

The guys are then growled, and looked like they wanted to take a step forward and fight. Goose held up a hand, his hench men stayed rooted, but growling like the angry guard dogs they were.

"Clearly. But you also need to understand how hard this is for both of them?"

Newt was shaking with barley controled anger. He shook his head violently. "We're planning to break out and head for Denver later today. I’m going with them, if Evey can she will... We're trying to do one last good thing. But you...you need to leave. NOW."

"Go away." Evelyn gasped. "Leave. And never...ever come back." Evelyn was shaking from a completely different reason than anger. It was sorrow and fear now.

We can help Keisha and Dante , Evelyn thought. I can’t help you, Keisha and Dante...if I live through this crank episode. She let the anger inside her simmer. Newt was standing his ground, he stood protectively in front of Evelyn who was now in and out of consciousness. Newt stood panting hard firm in their decision to stay and that was enough to soothe her. A little.

"We don’t expect you to understand," he continued, "but we can’t be with you guys anymore. It’s gonna be hard enough for me now, if...if Evelyn is gone and it’ll make it worse if I know you have to witness it. Or worst of all, if I hurt you. Evelyn already tried. More than once. So let’s say our bloody good-byes and then you can promise to remember us from the good old days."

"I can’t do that," Minho said. Far too calmly. With far too much confidence.

This set Newt off again. He screamed something that his mind forgot as each phrase came tumbling from his mouth. Trying to still his trembling hands, he held onto the Launcher so tightly his veins popped out. "Get out of here!"

The situation was a powder keg. The situation was a disaster. Evelyn struggled to her feet, chocking on the infected phlegm, her head spinning, her body screaming in pain, but she stood up. Leaning heavily on Ruffio.

"Fuck-off. Now." She whispered with all the venom and bitterness she could throw into those three words.

With one finger, Jonesy poked Thomas from behind, who spun around only to be poked again, this time in the chest. The other members of the Crank Mafia Gang piled up behind Newt and Evelyn like water at a dam. Goose did nothing to stop them this time.

“I believe our Princess and her Boy asked you people to leave them alone," Jonesy said.

Thomas didn’t back down. "This is none of your business. They were our friend way before they came here.”

Jonesy slicked back his hair, the virus having turned him into a storybook villain. Goose held his hand up Jonsey shut his mouth and he spoke as calmly as he could.

"Those kids are Cranks now, and so are we. That makes them our business. Now leave them… alone. We are asking nicely."

It was Minho’s turn. "Hey, psycho, maybe your ears are clogged with the Flare. This is between us and Newt and Pixy. You leave."

"Fuck Minho. You never know when to shut your mouth." Evelyn snapped. Anger was fuiling her, giving her energy again. The crank was cackling in her head, drowning out a lot of the noise around.

"Not smart of you." Goose sighed, he did look sorry, but he didn't do anything to control his thugs now.

The powder keg sprung a leak; a match ignited and grew closer.

Jonesy raised a hand, a shard of glass squeezed tightly in his grasp, enough to make him bleed. "I was hoping you would resist. I’ve been bored."

The powder keg met the flame.

Jonesy the fool, lashed out with his weapon, tried to gash Tommy across the face. The world tilted right before Evelyn's eyes, but it was only Thomas falling to the ground to avoid the sharp piece of glass. But Sonny had stepped up, knocked Jonesy’s arm with a hard chop; the glass flew out of the man’s hand and shattered against the wall. Then Minho barged in, tackled Jonesy; they both crashed to the floor, right on top of the drugged-out girl. Bliss or no Bliss, she screamed a gurgling scream, kicked and flailed at anything that would move. Enough punches landed to begin a brawl; Evelyn couldn’t tell whose arms and legs were whose.

Evelyn's vision clouded, a white fost froze over her eyes, and the storm of noise returned. The buzzing. The roar. The thump, thump, thump of her impossible pulse. She screamed, although it seemed to be within a long tunnel, forever echoing. Newt was thrashing his head, his face twisted in a wild rage, he was also screaming.

"Stop it! Stop it now! Stop or I’ll-" Newt trailed off, to distracted to scream, he was sweeping back and forth as if he sprayed the bullets of a machine gun. He shook with unspeakable rage, losing his mind to it

Evelyn still had enough grasp of reality, a small sliver to drop her hatchet, she didn't want to kill her old friends, they just needed to leave.

She had lost control of herself and ripped the launcher from Newt's grip . Not knowing what else to do, how else to expend the incredible energy building inside of him, she pulled the trigger.

Through the cloud of white she barely saw the Launcher grenade strike Jonesy and explode in blue flashes. Evelyn heard nothing but her own noise. Tendrils of lightning danced across Jonesy’s body as he collapsed, writhed, drooled.

Newt and Evelyn were holding it together by a spider’s thread, hoping it would be over soon.

Whispering, he said, "I told him to stop. Now you guys leave. No more discussion. I’m sorry."

Minho tried to say something but all Evelyn heard was noise on top of noise.

"Go." Evelyn strained to speak. "We both asked nicely. Now I’m telling. This is hard enough. Go."

Minho said something about all of them going outside to talk. Newt pulled up his Launcher into firing position, stumbled a step or two toward his old friend.

“Go! Get out of here!”

Thomas, Minho and Sonny spoke to each other. Evelyn heard nothing, but more words leaked out of her own mouth.

"I’m… I’m going to-" Evelyn handed the gun back to Newt and very slowly picked up her hatchet, she pointed it at Minho, her best friend in the whole world. Her hand shook violently. Angry bitter tears threatened to fall. The floor around her was starting to frost, she felt the air drop a few degrees. Unbelievable pain was coursing through her body. She could feel the Flare veins spreading. Slowly taking over her body.

"If you don't go. I unleash everything. And I don't shucken care who it hits." Her voice shook with rage. She saw Minho's face fall, she saw his sorrow and anguish. But it was nothing compared to hers.

"An' I start shooting if you don’t go. Now. Good bye sister."

"Leave. Now. And never come back. Good bye Minho." She whispered, before the darkness took her.

They turned to leave, unspeakable pain on their faces.

They were leaving her. They were leaving Newt.

She wanted them to. They both wanted them to.

She hated them for doing it.

Tommy. Minho. Sonny. Sonya. Brenda. Jorge. Walking away. Out the door.

Evelyn had collapsed back to the ground convulsing and choking on the black phlegm. She couldn't breathe, she kept coughing. Newt fell to one knee, knowing he couldn’t have lasted another minute. He spoke aloud to anyone who might listen.

"Chase them. Make sure they don’t come back."

Goose nodded and the place cleared out more than half the cranks took off after their friends.

Newt collapsed to the ground and tears poured from his fogged eyes, though it had nothing to do with madness. He dropped the launcher, and clawed his way to Evelyn. He somehow managed to pull her upper body into his lap and held her as they both cried in defeat and sorrow.

________________________

It took three hours for Evelyn’s heart to settle back to a normal beat, for the blur of her vision to crystallize into clarity, for the roar in her ears to fade away to quiet. And the freezing sharp pain to dull into a steady throb. Somehow they'd made it back to their little room above The Circus.

Newt and Evelyn slept. Though she didn’t remember falling asleep or waking up. She’d closed her eyes and opened them again a thousand times, willing that white haze to depart from her vision. The noise dissipated too slowly to notice, and then seemed gone in an instant.

Evelyn whimpered when she moved. She felt movement beside her, and a hand gently stroked her cheek.

"Love?" He sounded awful. And worried.

"Newt?" She croaked, her throat hurt, her chest still felt heavy and crackly.

"Yeah, I'm here." His voice didn't sound much better.

"How...how are you?"

"Head still hurts. I imagine it'll bloody hurt more often than not from now on."

"Newt? Evelyn?"

They looked up from their bed in the corner of the room, saw Keisha, her eyes filled with concern. She’d probably been with them for a while, but as far as Evelyn could remember, this was the first time she’d seen her since the riots ended that morning.

"You feeling like yourselves again?" she asked "you wanna try to sit up?"

Newt tried to nod, but failed. Tried to speak again, but only got out a grunt. So he got his hands under him and pushed his body up and around to sit with his back against the wall.

Evelyn tried. But she gave up, the world swam for a minute but then settled back into position. The movement sent a shockwave of pain through her skull. She knew she was close to the end. Her breathing was ragged and shallow. Her limbs were shacking. Newt helped shift her so she had her head in his lap.

Newt looked a little better. He was definitely better. Evelyn closed her eyes and whimpered, which just ended in her coughing, wet deep hacking coughs, that made her whole body shack with it.

Keisha and Newt exchanged a long look, their eyes showing sadness for the day past and fear for the next one up, they glanced down at Evelyn and then back at each other.

"Wanna talk or… nah?" She finally asked. "Maybe we should postpone-"

"No!" Newt snapped.

"No!" Evelyn cried between coughs, grimacing at the pinch of pain in her forehead.

"No way. There’s no way in hell we’re bloody postponing anything. We’re getting you to your family. Tomorrow. I need that more than you do. We-" he glanced down at Evelyn, "we need it more than you."

Evelyn nodded.

Keisha nodded as well and kept nodding, as if she wanted to say something but had to fight back tears. Donta appeared on the bed, he crawled over and laid his little head on Evelyn's shoulder. She gave him a small smile and held an arm out for him. He laid down and Evelyn closed her eyes, gently tickling his back. Evelyn's muscles relaxed, the tension in her sore body eased.

"Tell me about today," Keisha said quietly. "How bad was it? That walking freak Jonesy… he wouldn’t know an intelligent conversation if it leaped up and bit him on the nose. I barely understood 10 words when he dropped you off. Ruffio, Spider and Goose though...they looked pissed. They wouldn't say anything."

"Jonesy helped bring us back?” Newt asked. "Lee shot him with a bloody Launcher grenade!

"Ops." Evelyn half heartedly smiled.

"Yeah. He said to tell you that he forgives you and that he knows you did it by accident. He actually laughed about it. Dude’s hilarious."

"Uh. I don't think it was. But...he doesn't need to know that."

"He certainly deserved it for attacking Tommy. Oh well." Newt shrugged, he coughed a few times.

Keisha handed them each a bottle of water. And helped Evelyn sit up and lean against the wall. She gave Keisha a smile of thanks. She went to take Donta back, but Evelyn shook her head.

"No...he...keeps my mind quiet. If that's okay?" Evelyn said quietly. "He...reminds me of...of...of..." She frowned, and squeezed her eyes closed.

"Chuck?" Newt suggested quietly.

"Yeah." She nodded, opening her eyes. "Chuck. He reminds me of Chuck."

"Alright dear." Keisha nodded, sitting at the edge of the bed. "so...how bad was it?" She repeated, looking between Newt and Evelyn, waiting for an answer.